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Online, I have managed to gather some writer friends. I am not always the greatest person about learning every aspect of the job but interacting with some other writers sometimes helps.

About that: I have been particularly bad about learning every gory detail about the industry. For over 20 years I was just one of the writers who is an artist about writing and was looking elsewhere for a day job. I had not forgotten that my mother advised that I either try to become a technical writer or else make sure to have a day job.

Harsh reality: there was a reason for that advice.

There have been many changes in the industry during the past ten years. In truth, the situation has continued to improve and to become worse right along with the improvements.

The reality for those who were getting some income by writing online is just one area where changes made by a relatively small number of powerful business people caused a lot of people to lose their income as writers. Part of it seems to have been a side effect of ‘affiliate marketing’ and ‘content mills’ but not all of the changes are clear. In some cases it is just that the environment became much more competitive.

Freelancing websites abound but more people are participating. Job openings for full time staff writers have been growing in many nations including the USA and UK for those using English. Even so, many of the writing jobs that women working from home were doing, suddenly disappeared and many pro writers were suddenly told they would no longer be paid for their work. Elsewhere online, some freelancing sites told people they could work at beginner rates their entire lives or be blackballed.

Meanwhile, more affluent writers balked at the horrors some of their counterparts were going through and urged those others to either switch to way better paying clients or to switch jobs entirely. The underworld of writers has made it so that some people who want to get paid to write actually can, but like much in life it has both a bright side and a dark side.

In 2016, this situation has not come to an end. There is some writing work available serving affiliate marketers and there are still plenty of jobs – full time and freelance positions, for professional writers in the English language. Landing and keeping clients is just one of the many aspects of the job aside from the writing itself that writers may learn at any time in the process.

Most writers are known under the nomiker ‘journalists’ and many others work ‘at magazines’ or other types of ‘staff writers’. Such people often manage to earn a living which often impresses other writers but literary authors and artistic writers are often left with a bitter or sour feeling about it. Journalists themselves, including quite successful ones I have personally met, have themselves felt beaten into submission and found themselves proud to have earned a living for decades as professional writers but still wondering if anyone would ever pay them for anything they wrote because they wanted to write it.

During the past ten years, as most readers may already know, there has been drama about how much the world of publishing has been changing and about how much electronic publishing formats were becoming powerful and whether or not they were a threat to print media.

Some readers may recall that one of the big thrills of the computer revolution was supposed to be reduction in consumption of forests for use as paper. That might not be great news for the paper industry. However, in actual practice, the dynamics and the drama between that kind of ecologically friendly motive and also the reality of where the money in the industry is and how people honestly feel about using electronic and print formats. The more recent introduction of e readers created another great opportunity for people to look into electronic books versus print books. Consumer trends, pricing, what will really work for whom and why or why not.

There were hopes and fears that ebooks would overtake print books but after a few years it now looks as if print books are still more popular but that e readers and ebooks now have a nice healthy niche within the book industry.

As it happens, and as referred to earlier, the majority of professional writers are not book writers, but some are. The most famous of writers are quite often the book writers and a few journalists. Every once in a while a play write or a poet becomes ‘famous’. In the meantime, the TV and film writers pull in good livings and end up in situations that are reminiscent of corporate executives or university Deans – they are not really treated as stars, but they really do well for themselves and have good reputations. Studio musicians with good reputations have a similar kind of experience.

Print and online article writers and blog writers are most likely to be the most numerous kind of writers – especially when ‘ordinary, real journalists’ are included in the count. It also includes hordes of writers working from home, sometimes as parts of groups and other times as individual freelancers.

The industry continues to change. The biggest mystery of the world of professional writing is that for those in this vast and broad ranging industry, the paths to success are somewhat diverse and what counts as success is to. As in acting and so many other professions, the majority are not the most successful and many suffer from shattered dreams. Many professional writers do best early on and when young whereas there are large corps of others who become successful after age 50 or even after age 65. Of those, some just try it as a new thing later in life but here and there are success stories from people who really tried hard for 47 years to become successful writers before they finally ‘made it’. In that respect, some writers give each other a lot of advice and some say only that people should really get a job in a different field if one wishes to earn a living.

How To Use A Ghostwriter – For Your Business

Your Need

You have a business. It may be online, or brick-n-mortar or both. You have communications that you need written up. Now and then you need some help. Maybe you need help regularly but not enough to provide a full time job to someone. You want to outsource but would like to establish a relationship with whoever helps you meet your writing needs.

You can hire the work out to a writer. Many freelance writers are willing to work as ghostwriters. In these cases, a ghostwriter is not so much a specialist as someone who will simply not have their own name on the finished piece.

You can find these people online or by networking with people who you know on or offline. Ghostwriter Needed is the website of Miriam Pia, who works as both a ghostwriter and author.

Every writer has their limitations. Miriam Pia is not willing to just do your university doctoral thesis for pay. Miriam is not able to write a medical book for a physician without a lot of research and help from the doctor or nurses because she is not a trained medical professional.

Miriam Pia is excellent for books, and for articles. She has written reports and has done some academic writing. She has written online curriculum. she has written for adults and for children but has more experience writing for adults.

Research projects are acceptable, but the less the area is one of experience, the more research is needed. Fees are commensurate with the size and scope of the project and the amount of research involved.

Editing and proof reading services are also available.

Deadlines

Deadlines and schedules need to be discussed during negotiations. If Miriam is not otherwise busy, it is often feasible to get 1000 words or fewer turned around in 24 hours from when the deal is made. Entire books require 1 full year when the author is not too busy.

Rates

Rates are dependent upon negotiation. Miriam prefers $0.20/word or better, but has worked for less and would rather work and get paid than get nothing from lack of better paying clients. Flat rates are possible. For example: $50 per article, $15K for a draft of a book.

The following are simplified forms of writer’s tips I have received over the years:

For amateurs: write every day, if in school or university take English classes. Join a writer’s group. Learn to accept constructive criticism. Read the greats.

For professionals: Don’t quit your day job. Don’t expect to earn a living doing it.

Get a communications or journalism degree and then you might be allowed to earn a living as an in house staff writer.

It is actually both what you can do and who you know or can get to listen to your pitch.

There are ways to earn a living at it but people act as if letting you know what they are is more secret than people’s raunchiest sexual secrets or secret service classified information of their nation state, so good luck finding out.

A natural question for some is: how is writing related to spiritual growth? Well, most of know that some writings have been held sacred for thousands of years. During phases in any culture where literacy rates are low or books are hard to come by then hanging onto sacred writings or treating them with respect is all that can be taught.

There are people who earn a living writing spiritual books and work along those lines. Both clerics and lay folk do so, although their motives may not always be identical.

People may engage in private writing or professional writing that those doing it do not perceive as being for spiritual reasons.

Privately, people may write about their spiritual lives or about their own lives from a spiritual angle. For those practicing a religion intentionally, who want a means of keeping track of what happens, writing in a journal may help.

A few months ago I read a nice article online by another writer. He wrote of how personal and professional development went together for writers and authors, at least in his own perception.

Many years ago, one of my professors who was also a martial arts Olympic Judoist I took just a few lessons from talked with me about it. I was wanting to write more but treasured the opportunity to take judo lessons from such an esteemed teacher. He was a psych professor and was actually alive despite having been a WW2 Kamikazee pilot. What he told me back then was that it was all about growing as a person and if the writing was more useful to me for that, at that time, then just do that and don’t worry about it.

Last week one post was about types of writers and some of the types of professional ones. Like most industries, it all seems the same at first, but the more you learn about it, the less like that it stays.

Advertising: there are writers who work for advertising agencies. Some agencies do work with freelancers, others do not. For people who do not only write, this can be a good match. You have to like people, creativity and the true nature of advertising. If helping people is everything to you – this may rapidly decay into mere profiteering. If you just like to get paid and deal with creative people, you might really like this industry.

Documentation: I didn’t even know about this until I was over 40 years old. These are corporate positions. If you already work in a large company with numerous departments – ask around, and you just might find that you can get a spot in the documentation department.

Writers in documentation departments are less likely to have journalism or communications degrees than the people working in TV, newspaper staff, magazine staff and ad. agencies. They are more likely to have a technical skill such as engineer and want to write.

Grant proposal writers: These people may or may not admit that they are even writers depending on how they got there and how they really feel about it. They do write, but normally they make their money writing proposals for an organization to get grants. There are a few specialist freelancers who write grant proposals. This is another one of those weird little jobs that one might not have thought of when one think “writers”.

There are more than just these. Hope this helps those wondering what “writers” means in terms of job titles.

Here is the reality of the situation. As a writer, other than ‘losing’ to competitors, I don’t feel that I can be of any real useful assistance to all other writers out there. There are many I have made online contact with who have been published more times and by bigger publishing houses or who have more experience selling their wares or their skills to higher paying markets. Because help is often based on experience, I don’t feel I have much to offer people like that in the way of assistance.

However, there are types of writers that I probably really can help without having to ‘be a loser in relation to a winner’ to do so. I did offer some writing workshops as one small effort to do so. I just brought in regular people: one group, I helped to write a unique poem about themselves. The other group I helped to clarify and organize the intergenerational stories and experiences that they want to be able to carry on or even to pass on to future generations of their families. They did not view themselves as professional writers but I was able to help them.

There are writers who are novices to the profession that I can offer a little help to, but I still need help from editors and inside contacts and publishers and agents and more experienced pros in order to even learn what I need to do, and then I also have to do it, or else it doesn’t work.